


TiMER

by texadian



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-01
Updated: 2015-05-01
Packaged: 2018-03-26 15:55:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3856438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/texadian/pseuds/texadian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock is sure that these soulmate Timers are a waste of money and time. But when John's Timer leads him to Mary, Sherlock is tempted to buy one for himself. With Molly's Timer blank and waiting, a small spark of hope tells Sherlock that he could be the one to get hers ticking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	TiMER

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Liathwen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liathwen/gifts).



> A very -I stress very- belated birthday present for Liathwen.
> 
> Thanks to justmindy for the beta.

“Sherlock!”

“What is it Mrs. Hudson? I’m in the middle of a case and I need-”

“Oh, shush,” the landlady replied, stepping into his sitting room. She gave Sherlock a smile with the shake of her head, before turning back to the door.

“Who’s there?” he asked, catching onto the true nature of her presence.

She smiled again, all knowingly, and tutted to herself. A second later, John stepped in from behind her with his hand around the shoulders of a blonde woman with short hair.

Sherlock rose to speak, when John beat him to it. “This is Mary, my soulmate, Sherlock.”

The consulting detective’s eyes narrowed and flickered between the two. Arm around shoulder, but not too snug; eyes downcast momentarily, unsure of himself; protective stance, established feelings.

“I see your Timer has started and ended quite promptly. What was it then, this morning?”

John released a sigh and his arm fell from Mary’s shoulder to rest on his hip impatiently.

“Nice to see that 100 pounds went to good use then, eh? Still a pretty useless matchmaking device though. How long did you have that blank one for, 7 months?”

Mrs. Hudson coughed to end the stalemate between the two friends. “It was nice to meet you, Mary. I’ll just be downstairs.”

“Just before bed actually,” John admitted when the three of them were left alone in the front entryway to Sherlock’s flat.

“A friend of mine dared me to get one last night. A bit of a spur of the moment thing, but then again, we were pretty plastered.” Mary laughed quietly to herself until the room returned to silence.

“Well if that’s all you needed to tell me.” Sherlock left the two hanging at the end of the sentence before grabbing his coat and flying past them, out the door.

 

The side door of Barts was still open at 9:30, despite the late time. Sherlock could hear a calm humming coming from the morgue as he approached the stainless steel doors.

“Listen to the radio often, now?”

Molly jumped at the sound of Sherlock’s voice and her cheeks flushed.

“No, it was just playing at the restaurant; the song. Never mind.”

Sherlock scrunched his nose, confused at her response, but ignored it when he saw a partial cadaver lying behind her on the autopsy table.

“When did that come in?” Sherlock broke his train of thought and made his way over to the body, ignoring Molly’s attempts to clarify her response.  

“About 45 minutes ago…” Molly stepped around to the other side of the table where Sherlock was now hovering over.

“I’m guessing this is the other half to the body found last week?”

“Should find out once I start the autopsy, but yes, that would make sense.”

Sherlock grabbed a clean probe from the counter and inspected the toes on the bottom half of the body. After separating the toes on the victim’s left foot, Sherlock nodded his head. “You will find it is. Same infection on the foot that the victim’s top half had on the arm.” Sherlock turned away to think.

“Infection? He was shot in the head Sherlock, I don’t think a little athletes foot had anything to do with-”

“Needle marks.” Sherlock whipped around and pointed to the toes. “Heroin addict could no longer shoot up by injecting the needle into his arm, due to the infection, so he started…” Sherlock paused. “Bad date Molly?”

Molly looked up surprised after lolling into a daze half way through Sherlock’s druggie observations.

“Not bad,” she replied, not making eye contact with Sherlock.

“Not good either though. Why else would you be here? You were notified, probably by an email or message that the body had been delivered to the lab. Normally, you would wait ‘till morning to start the autopsy, but you needed an excuse out of the date.” Sherlock walked back to Molly’s side of the table and pushed her lab coat aside to reveal a light blue, knee-high length dress to match the black heels still sitting by her purse on the counter.  “So, as I said, not good.”

Molly visibly sank, deflated.

“How long did his Timer have left?”

Molly should have been shocked by his deduction, but this was Sherlock she was dealing with and she was Molly.

“It was blank when I met him, but it started counting down last week. It’s not his fault that he’s acting so detached. I mean,” Molly raised her voice. “I would too if I was going to meet my soulmate in five days!”

Sherlock didn’t reply, but reached down and took Molly’s wrist in his hand. The small screen embedded on the inside of her wrist was still blank, with dashes across the screen where numbers would have been.

“Yes, it’s still blank,” she told Sherlock, her voice strained with the exhaustion of repeating that phrase over and over again everyday for two years.

“This soulmate shit is complete bullshit though, you know.” Sherlock dropped her hand and raised his eyes to meet hers. “John got a Timer. He paid over a 100 pounds just to go out with some nurse from his office.” Sherlock shook his head, still peeved.

“He met his soulmate?” Molly asked, taking away only a fraction of the information from Sherlock’s rant.

Sherlock sensed the undying hope behind Molly’s eyes and nodded. “I met her today. She actually looks interesting. Still mundane, but it could be worse.”

Molly smiled, before her focus returned to the detached body in front of her.

“I need to finish this Sherlock. Just get my mind off of this stupid thing for a few hours.” She looked down at the daunting screen on her wrist. “I’ll let you guys know if I get anything back from this tomorrow.”

Sherlock agreed to let her be and turned to leave the room.

 

Within two days, the toxicology report on the victim’s stomach came back positive for high levels of amphetamines and Sherlock was almost the first person to find out. Lestrade had been tracking the victim’s dealer and found a few possible locations for where the actual murder had taken place. A short phone call later, Sherlock was on his way over to John’s office so the two could inspect each of the possible scenes.

The waiting area Sherlock found himself sitting in was a breeding ground for bacteria and airborne pathogens. Two children appeared to be sick along with their mother who paid no attention to the toddlers while she flipped through an out-dated copy of Elle Magazine. An elderly gentleman produced a cough similar to that of a choking lion every twenty seconds and a woman clothed in almost all black from head to toe couldn’t stop scratching some atrocious rash every time she moved.  

Sherlock was about to stand and wait outside when he spotted his best friend from behind the matte glass. He rose from his chair quickly, but stopped when another figure moved close to John on the other side of the closed door. The two spoke lively, though inaudibly from Sherlock’s distance away, and touched each other’s arms after every few sentences.

When the door finally opened minutes later, John gave one last lingering glance to Mary, before turning to see Sherlock staring at them.

“Alright, say it,” John prompted when the two men left the office.

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to say anything.”

They paused to exchange looks.

“You’re a bloody liar,” John accused.

Sherlock smirked. “Fine. Okay? You two appear to be quite smitten.”

“Smitten? Really?” John narrowed his eyes. “We’re not young people Sherlock.”

“Of course you aren’t. Young people don’t call themselves _young people_.”

John smacked Sherlock on the arm. “Let’s just go then, okay? Where is the first site Lestrade has narrowed down?”

After an exciting chase at the third crime scene, Sherlock concluded the case, finding the suspect still in possession of the stolen amphetamines he administered to the victim before death. Caught up in the rush of it all, Sherlock regrettably returned home alone, to 221b, where he had been living by himself since his return.

 

The following weekend went by in a blur. Sherlock hardly ever left his flat and when he did, his return to Baker Street was quite prompt. It was Monday afternoon and with John away in Belfast with Mary and no bullets left in the barrel of his gun, Sherlock announced to his empty room, “I am Bored! Bored, bored, bored, bored… bored.”

As if on cue, the silent buzzing of Sherlock’s phone lit up on the coffee table in front of him and he swung his dressing gown clad body to the side to answer the call.

“Yes?”

“New case. Interested?” Lestrade asked over the line.

“Who is this?” Sherlock drew the phone away from his face to read the number.

“Greg!” he replied confused. “Haven’t you got my number saved?”

Sherlock didn’t reply, but moved past the confusion with indifference.

“Where and who and why?”

“Private jet hangar of Heathrow, I’ll explain in person, and because someone has been murdered, Sherlock!”

“Okay. This better be at least a six.”

Lestrade sighed. “Like you have anything better to do. I know John is away.”

Sherlock scowled, but agreed to be there soon.

 

It was not Heathrow Airport that Sherlock cabbed to first, but Molly’s flat in the opposite direction of his destination.

“Case?” Molly asked him, upon seeing his figure on the other side of her door. It wasn’t an entirely lucky guess for Molly, for the only times Sherlock ever stopped by were the odd cases that John could not assist him with and the sporadic weeks he spent drudged up in her back room, using her flat as a bolthole.

“Yes,” he answered, a bit surprised. “Shall we go?”

Molly looked back towards her unfinished breakfast and down at the yoga pants and baggy t-shirt she wore that still had a damp patch on the sleeve from where she’d drooled during the night.

“Or you can finish your toast and get dressed.”

Molly shot him a muddled look before he pointed to the toast flakes stuck to the corner of her mouth. She brushed the crumbs away and hurried back inside leaving the door open for him to come in.

“What’s happened?” Molly asked minutes later as she finished her breakfast, swallowing her last sip of orange juice. Her feet were tucked underneath her bum and she leaned forward, elbows against the table, towards the slightly agitated man across from her.

“Lestrade wouldn’t exactly say, but I have a feeling that someone semi-important in government has been murdered and my brother has assigned me to the case.”

“I thought you said that Lestrade called you?”

“Yes, but we all know, well I know, that a vague call about a case from Lestrade means that my brother is trying to be sneaky. I’ll let him have this one and stay interested. We never know; it could be a 7 or maybe an 8.”

Sherlock sprung up from his seat then and ushered Molly back towards her bedroom. “Change fast,” he urged, before shutting the door.

 

A slew of men in black suits awaited Sherlock and Molly at the crime scene, with the exception of Lestrade and Anderson in mismatched trousers and button ups. Sherlock acknowledged Lestrade before ducking underneath the tape and holding it up for Molly. She stepped forward and came up on the other side to join Sherlock, who was blocked by two stone faced men.

“Well?” Sherlock looked across to the agents, definitely Mycroft’s, and waited.

The two didn’t reply, but looked forward as if beyond Sherlock’s intense glare.

“I’m here, so show us the body.” Sherlock motioned between himself and Molly.

The agent facing Sherlock spoke rapidly into his ear piece, before pausing for a couple of minutes, then letting the two of them through.

A small jet sat on the other side of the entrance to the hanger. The door near the front of the plane was open and various people scattered around it like ants fleeing an assaulted anthill. From out of the mass, hands clasped behind his back, came Mycroft with a pleased smile on his face.

“Glad you could make it, William.”

Sherlock grimaced.

“William?” Molly muttered.

Sherlock ignored the comment for now and stepped forward towards his brother.

“I’d never miss my brother calling for help,” Sherlock replied with sarcasm laced in his voice.

“Of course you wouldn’t brother of mine. But you must have misunderstood my message, for it was you calling for help; barely leaving your flat in four days, Sherlock. What would Mummy say?”

“Just, show us the body.”

Mycroft obliged with a less than congenial smile.

Lying halfway between the aisle and seats 2A and 2B, sat the cadaver under examination. It was partially burned, leaving the skeleton of the man exposed from his waist up. The hands and feet were severely damaged as well.

“Do we know cause of death yet?” Molly spoke up from behind Sherlock, immediately bending down to glance over the body.

Sherlock peered over her, watching as she meticulously inspected the burn marks on the hands. As if mentally connected, Sherlock handed Molly a set of gloves as she turned back to look up at him.

“Thanks,” she whispered under her breath.

The gloves snapped over her right hand, followed by her left –the ring and pinkie fingers snagging on the latex. She extended her hand towards him again for a probe when his right arm shot back towards his side –his left hand pulling the sleeve of his Belstaff down past his clenched fist.

Molly didn’t say anything, but shot him an alarmed look as if to say ‘ _Are you okay?_ ‘

He avoided her gaze and returned his own to the body. Expensive suit trousers, Cartier watch still ticking along, and perfectly hemmed trousers, still covering the victim’s shoes just below the ankle.

Like a runner taking off after the gun, Sherlock found his comfort zone and began rattling off his stream of thought. “The man appears to be someone of power or great importance. His suit and watch are expensive, but not very expressive indicating most likely a role in government.” Sherlock broke for a second, eyes searching the plane for his brother. “Common sense would indicate that this is the man who owns the plane, but the evidence doesn’t add up. His teeth are smashed in and the pads of his fingers burned off-”

“Sherlock.” Molly tried to cut in.

“A technique,” Sherlock pushed on giving Molly a weary eye. “A technique used to conceal the victim’s identity. However, the body was left here on his plane. My guess is that he wasn’t even killed here, but dumped and moved there after.”

Mycroft met Sherlock’s eye with a devious smile. He knew, at that moment that something was off.

“Were you about to say something Dr. Hooper?” Mycroft stepped up from the door near the cockpit and leaned against the first row of seats.

“This plane belongs to Jeffrey Davenport, Lord Chancellor and recently engaged to the Duchess of York.”

Sherlock snorted.

“But, if you were to pay attention to the news.” She shot another drop-dead glare at Sherlock. “You would know that he is an avid tennis player.”

“I fail to see how the ways in which Mr. Davenport spends his spare time are pertinent.” Sherlock looked away from Molly, bored. His body betrayed his arrogance though, and he remained facing the petite pathologist, waiting for the conclusion to her argument.

“This man in front of us does not play tennis.”

This caught Sherlock’s full attention. “What?”

“The amount of wear and tear that Davenport exerted on his arm would show an increase in bone density at the synovial joint between his humerus, radius and ulna. I would be surprised if this man here ever lifted a finger in his life.”

With little more than a small lopsided grin towards Molly, Sherlock reverted his attention back to his brother.

“Is this true?”

Mycroft shrugged. “I don’t personally know the man.”

“But you know that this isn’t Davenport?” Sherlock fumed.

“In not so many words. Davenport was at risk. We needed those that were concerned with his livelihood, to be much less concerned about his _livelihood_. ”

“Then why am I here?” Sherlock asked between clenched teeth.

“The publicity of course. _The_ Sherlock Holmes investigating a murder at London Heathrow Airport; it’s sure to get some coverage.”

“And you want this…?”

“Terrorist group.”

“Terrorist group,” Sherlock continued, “you want them to believe that their target is what? Dead?”

Mycroft nodded. “Now you’re getting it. With the help of…?”

“My pathologist.”

“Yes, _your_ pathologist none the less.”

 

Keeping up with Sherlock’s hastened pace, Molly followed behind the man until he stopped outside the front of the airport to hail a cab. The traffic was crazy, but the frantic atmosphere around them made his next question stick out more than ever.

“Would you like to grab take away with me, Molly?” He paused unsure of himself. “Taking into account that this case is definitely over.”

Molly went to nod yes, when a cab finally pulled up beside them. Sherlock opened the door for her and motioned for her to step in. He was right behind her, left hand bracing the roof of the cab, when a loud beep emanated from Sherlock’s arm.

The two met each other’s gaze in a stunted look.

“My watch,” Sherlock spoke suddenly, breaking their stalemate, still halfway between the curb and the backseat. “I’m late.”

“Okay…” Molly replied confused.

“I will see you at a later time, Molly.” Sherlock waved goodbye and closed the door behind her, letting the cab take off without him.

 

“I need you to focus, John.” Sherlock stood up and began pacing with phone in hand. “Something has happened.”

Sherlock could hear John on the other end of the line, sighing.

“Am I taking up too much of your vacation, or can you spare me a minute?”

“Yes, yes I can,” John replied with a huff. “But it’s never just a minute with you.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes and stopped in front of his couch before sitting down.

“Molly isn’t my soulmate.”

Sherlock said it with such blatancy that for a second, John was stunned and unsure of how to reply.

“Yes… I would have to agree. Your point?”

Sherlock drew the phone away from his face and glanced down at the Timer on his wrist, counting down second by second, with twelve years to go.

“I thought, up until yesterday, that it could be a possibility. Us being soulmates and such.”

John guffawed. “Sorry, sorry. I don’t mean to sound rude, Sherlock, but this is you and Molly we’re talking about, right?”

Sherlock nodded solemnly, before he realized John could not see him and replied with an affirmative.

There was a brief moment of silence on the other end before John continued. “Why yesterday?”

Sherlock braced himself, knowing this question had been coming ever since he’d called his friend up.

“I bought a Timer a few days ago and it started counting after our case yesterday.”

“Oh,” John replied cheekily. “One of those ridiculous wastes of money. You got one. Mhm.”

Sherlock huffed. “I had to know!”

“You bought a Timer just to see if you and Molly were soulmates?” This was more surprising to John than his best friend forking out 100 pounds for the Timer itself.

“Yes. That’s correct.”

More silence on the other end.

“What now?”

“That’s sort of why I buzzed you.”

“Hmm.”

“No ideas?”

“Not one. Sorry mate.”

Sherlock sighed –the two friends road blocked by the dilemma.

Just when John began to offer consoling words, Mary began making a ruckus in the background behind John.

“That’s it!’ Sherlock yelled into his mobile.

John could barely hear anything on the other line and replied with a confused, “What?”

“Forget I said anything, John. I have an idea.”

“What?” John yelled again. But it was no use, Sherlock had already hung up his phone and was on his laptop –a plan formulating in his mind.

 

The following day, Sherlock bounded into the lab at a quarter to eight o’clock in the morning, catching Molly at the beginning of her shift. She shot him an apprehensive glance.

“Went to bed early or did the neighbour wake you at the crack of dawn and you got bored?”

Sherlock paused to consider both, before barrelling on. “Neither, actually, Molly. I wanted to show you what I bought yesterday; you could say it was on a whim.”

He smiled and extended his left wrist towards her.

“You bought a Timer?” The question came out initially with excitement, before she glanced at it further and suddenly looked quite sad.

“Yes, I know, I know. Sherlock Holmes bought a Timer. Alert the press. Alert the press!” Sherlock continued on with his tirade, missing Molly’s change in countenance completely.

“They said he’d never stoop to the common people’s level, but alas I have. But why have I? To discredit them Molly. There are over 7 billion people in this world and this company claims that there is a soulmate for everyone. The concept is preposterous and the math is slapdash at best. The odds that one’s hypothetical soulmate buys a Timer are fairly low as well. I read online yesterday that 65% of Timer owners still have blank Timers, despite the company being around for five years now. “

“Sherlock,” Molly tried to stop his rant, putting a hand on his fake Timer arm.

“No, Molly. I say it’s okay to have a blank Timer. It means nothing. Who says we can’t solve crimes and go to dinner and discredit life-hack videos together, just because we have blank Timers?”

“Sherlock.” She tried to get his attention once more.

“All I’m saying is that this soulmate thing is utterly ridiculous. You don’t need this Timer.” Sherlock pointed to the fake one on his left wrist. “To live your life.”

With a satisfied sigh, Sherlock smiled down at Molly. His grin began to fade however, as he watched Molly fidget with the glove on her right hand, her left pulling down the top of it till it scrunched at her wrist.

“Your Timer has started.” Sherlock beat her to the punch line.

Despite the news already out in the open, Molly stuck out her arm in front of Sherlock to show him the very real Timer. 5:05:23:32, the clock read –the seconds ticking by faster than what he was accustomed to. _When did that happen,_ he thought to himself. _When did I say it was all right for this to happen?_

“It started sometime last night. I woke up with the Timer reading less than six days.” Molly attempted a smile, but it came out dejected. “I’m meeting my soulmate in less than a week.”

Her voice showed barely more excitement than when she received a dollar off coupon for groceries in the mail last week, but Sherlock didn’t catch this. A low buzzing had already begun to fill his ears. With a forced smile, he congratulated her and turned to leave the lab, coat billowing a little less flamboyantly than usual.

 

“All I’m saying is that maybe you’re right.” John averted his eyes from Sherlock’s, knowing the man would take any opportunity to gloat.

But all Sherlock did in response was mutter a “course I was,” before flopping down onto his sofa and pulling a pillow over his face.

John was used to Sherlock’s moping, but it’d always been for far more professional reasons. This however, was personal.

“Maybe it’s best that she’s found her soulmate. I mean, look at you and Mary. You’ve been getting on quite well.” Sherlock waved his hand dramatically, face still buried into the pillow.

“Sherlock-” John had really had enough of this.

“I’ve never seen you so chipper.” Sherlock chuckled to himself, though far from amused.

“Sherlock!” John snatched the pillow away from his face and tossed it to the ground.

He was met by a less than enthused tight-lipped frown.

“What?”

“You say that you should just give-up-”

“I’m not giving up.”

John raised his hand to silence his friend. “You are giving up and you are validating it by saying that Molly will meet her soulmate, yada yada yada. But maybe the Timers are wrong. Maybe it’s sheer luck that they’ve succeeded so far. What did you call that psychology term before?”

“Self-fulfilling prophecy?”

“Yes!”

“It doesn’t completely apply.”

John shot him a frustrated look. “It does. This company tells people they’ll meet their soulmate when the Timer reaches zero and when this happens, they want to fall in love because they’ve been told they’re supposed to. They expect happiness and ignore any signs that it could be wrong.”

“But Mary and you-”

“Mary and I have known each other for a while. All this bloody Timer has done, is given me the confidence to finally ask her out. We were an eventuality.” John smiled and glanced away for a moment. “We’d have always found each other eventually.”

Sherlock’s cold façade persisted, but he nodded along with his friend.

“I don’t know if Molly sees it that way.”

John puffed out incredulously. “Molly? Molly Hooper of St. Barts, not interested in you?”

Sherlock shrugged with a pout.

“If you’re this blind, I think you’re a lost cause at this point.”

“And if not? If I’m not a lost cause?”

“Then you have less than four days to fix this.”

 

The halls of St. Barts the following day had never been as intimidating as they were now. Sherlock heard each individual thud as his shoes made their way down the linoleum corridor, all the way to the end where Molly would be, holed up in her lab.

She looked up momentarily from her microscope to see him come in. There was no simple greeting or a blunt and right to the point request for body parts this time, though. He wandered in, as if a little lost, until he found his way, a few feet away from Molly –his eyes downcast to the side.

“A new case?” she tempted, not entirely convinced that he’d appear this out of sorts for anything related to a case, unless Anderson had somehow outsmarted him.

“No” he replied stoically, despite how his feet kept shifting back and forth.

“I got a Timer.” He stuck his wrist out in front of her to see.

She hadn’t looked down to see yet and was about to reply with a simple nod, when the image of descending numbers caught her attention.

“12 years?” Molly looked at him with pity. “Did it start yesterday?”

“No.” Sherlock withdrew his other wrist to show her the fake one.

She stumbled at first on her words, confused as to what was going on.

“Two Timers?”

“One is real and one is fake.” He lifted his fake one first that still read nothing. “Fake Timer… Real Timer.”

“But why do you have a fake Timer. Sherlock, I don’t understand. Why are you showing me this?”

Sherlock held a finger up to Molly’s lips while she waved her gloved hands by her sides uselessly.

“Can I borrow this?” Sherlock picked up a clean scalpel from the open drawer beside her.

Molly, wide eyed and stunned, nodded along.

“Splendid.” Sherlock smirked before wedging the metal knife between his skin and the metal device embedded within.

“Stop!” Molly yelled, frantically trying to remove her gloves.

He didn’t listen and continued to break the device away from his skin despite the blood appearing from within the crevice. With a loud snap, ¾ of the Timer broke off exposing an intricate set of wires connecting Sherlock with the damaged hardware.

Sherlock was on the swivel, looking for something in particular, when Molly’s clean hands reached forward and covered Sherlock’s wound with gauze.

“Can you please stop, Sherlock?” Molly tried to calm him, but he moved quickly and out of her reach in seconds.

“One moment, please Molly.”

He’d found the hard metal bottom to a ring stand and without warning, crushed the remaining hardware of his Timer between the stand and countertop.  A couple wires still hung on for dear life, but were soon severed as well by a pair of small scissors. Satisfied with the mess he’d made, Sherlock walked back over to a slack jawed Molly and placed his arm on top of the table in front of her.

“Some assistance would be greatly appreciated,” Sherlock spoke softly to her, trying to meet her roaming eyes. “I’m afraid I’ve lost a good amount of blood.”

At the thought of Sherlock’s wellbeing, Molly released herself from her stupor and grabbed the nearby first-aid kit to help disinfect and cover his wound.

After a minute of silence, Molly spoke up. “Was this really necessary?” Molly motioned to the large gash in his wrist as she cleaned up around the cut.

Sherlock shrugged. “I really didn’t like it or what it stood for.”

“Love?” Molly snorted.

“No.” Sherlock met her eye-line and looked unblinkingly at her for a long while. He was strangely serious for such a topic. “It’s a lie.”

Molly rolled her eyes.

“I’m serious,” he rebutted.  “It’s complete bullshit; this soulmates stuff. It’s-”

Sherlock flinched back from the burn of the disinfectant.

“Sorry,” Molly apologized. She took his hand in hers, the one with the Timer, and held him steady.

Sherlock felt the glass against the pads of his fingers and his anger for the Timers flared up again.

“They tell you that you can find your soulmate with the help of their little Timers, but they’re just self-fulfilling prophecies. All of them.”

“I don’t understand, Sherlock. Their success rate is almost 100%. Why are you so stubborn, so set on it being a lie? Love exists Sherlock! Why can’t Timers be right?”

“It can’t be true Molly.”

Molly released his arm, fully bandaged, and stepped back, infuriated. “Why?”

“It can’t be true Molly, because mine didn’t pick you.”

At a loss for words, the two stared back at each other. For once, Sherlock had nothing witty to say and Molly, for all her brilliant ramblings, couldn’t even spout a measly, “oh.”

A ding from the autoclave in the back broke their silence and Sherlock took this sound as his exiting point.

“If you want to meet your soulmate, that’s fine.” Sherlock grabbed the broken Timer pieces from the counter and shovelled them into his good hand.

“Sherlock-”

“I get it, okay?”

Molly tried to reach for him, but he was too fast, barrelling out of the lab. He didn’t even glance back, too crestfallen and embarrassed to face her. For all he knew, he was just another crazed sociopath in her eyes.

 

“You aren’t the least bit curious?” Mrs. Holmes slid a tray of biscuits across the coffee table to her son.

“I’m going to kill Mycroft,” Sherlock spat, taking a biscuit anyway.

“He didn’t tell me, William.”

Sherlock looked up surprised.

“She rang here, twice,” Mrs. Holmes said. “Told her you weren’t here like you requested, but she still gave me a message for you.”

Sherlock raised his hand, still chewing. “I don’t want to hear it mum.”

Mrs. Holmes rolled her eyes. “Fine, fine.” She snatched the tray away from her son and had made it to the archway by the kitchen, when Sherlock spoke up.

“What day is it?”

“Tuesday.”

Sherlock nodded, trying to conceal any emotions, but they were betraying him.

“I-”

“Mycroft has already sent a car over. It should be here soon. I expect you to make yourself presentable.”

Sherlock glanced down at his dressing gown and scuffed up trousers, before retreating to the spare room.

 

It was just past seven at night when a knock sounded from Molly’s door.

“That was fast,” Molly spoke to no one in particular. She reached out to grab her wallet when the knock sounded again, this time accompanied by a deep and familiar voice on the other end.

“Sherlock?” She opened the door and left it ajar for him to come in. “I’ve been trying to reach you. Where were you?”

Sherlock waved it off and set to making himself comfortable in her small and cozy flat. “Do you have any tea on? Perhaps coffee?” He tried sounding nonchalant, but pleasantries with Sherlock Holmes never did.

Molly didn’t reply.

“Or just a glass of water?”

He could see her moving into the living room and across from him towards the adjacent sofa. She was waiting for more, but he said nothing.

Finally, with little warning, she burst out, “he was no Sherlock Holmes, okay?”

“What?” Sherlock blinked rapidly, taken back.

“The bloke, my ‘soulmate’. He wasn’t anything special”

Sherlock tried to look indifferent, but his exterior was failing him.

“That’s why you’re here isn’t it? To see how our meeting went.”

Sherlock ignored her. “Are you sure? Did you like, go on a date?” His words came out bitter.

Molly shook her head; whether it was a response to his question or frustration with his behaviour was debatable. “He told me that he’d gotten the Timer when he was dating his girlfriend -they’d had a fight- and that he would have tried a relationship with me if I wanted, but he was still with his girlfriend.”

Sherlock leaned forward in his seat. “But you would have seen him if he was single?”

Molly groaned. “Are you daft Sherlock?

He looked affronted. “No, I-”

Molly extended her wrists toward Sherlock. Both were bare, despite a small scar just below the wrist on one of them. “I got it removed, _properly.”_ She shot him a playful smile. “Not as brash as your removal, but still.”

Sherlock stood then, quickly followed by Molly, and he reached out to take both hands in his own. The bandages, done up recently by his mother, tickled the back of Molly’s hand.

“What?” Sherlock looked down concerned.

“It just tickles, is all.”

“Oh.” Sherlock smiled down at his pathologist –her tentative grin melting away into a broader smile than his own.

After a delicate peck on her wrist, Sherlock pulled Moly to him quite forcefully and planted a searing kiss on her lips. The suddenness caused Molly to gasp and her hands shook as they wove themselves through his hair. They pulled back slightly to change directions, before Sherlock walked Molly back towards the sofa and lowered the two of them onto the far left cushion.

Their movements were uncoordinated and selfish, constantly changing their bodies’ positions to get a better angle. When they seemed to find a compromise, lying down lengthwise, with Molly on top, the two slowed, though still eager. Sherlock felt a steady tapping from Molly’s finger on his shoulder and he pulled back slightly to shoot her a curious look.

“It’s your heartbeat.” She smiled. “Bump, bump. Bump, bump.”

“Yes, it is.” Sherlock did the same to her, straining to rest his ear against her chest. “Both elevated.” He raised his brow suggestively.

“I was just checking to see if it’s there, actually.” She smirked and her eyes crinkled.

Sherlock shook his head with grin. “Yes, yes. Sherlock’s a real boy. Ha! Funny.”

“You could’ve fooled many, Sherlock.”

“But never you.” His jubilant look softened.

“No, never me.”

 


End file.
